The author is a former politician and former ambassador to Hungary and the Czech Republic.
First of all, because the Minister of Culture, without prior professional, social and political discussion, bypassing the government and parliament, and without having the appropriate professional and political authority and respect as a person, arbitrarily intervened in the form of one of the state symbols. As a representative of a marginal political force, she does not represent Slovakness, she has no salary for making Slovaks happy with her ideas and subjective tastes, and she cannot speak for the entire republic and nation.
Instead of a transparent tender process, she entrusted the project of a new musical arrangement of the national anthem worth 46,000 euros to Oskar Rózs, or his company. If the minister was so sure that this musician’s arrangement was so fantastic, why didn’t she organize a public procurement? I am deeply convinced that a wider participation and competition of artists and experts should have been made possible during the creation of such an important national symbol.
It is politically and humanly sick that all those who dared to disagree with her procedure as biased and unfair are labeled by Minister Martina Šimkovičová and her highest official Lukáš Machala as anti-Slovak elements who wage war against the most beautiful and noble idea, as people who do not care for Slovakia . Her protégé Oskar Rózsa behaves similarly.
Citizens were bypassed
I want to emphasize that I do not intend to comment on the musical quality of the new version of the anthem, because I do not have a musical education. For the layman, it is a matter of intuitive taste, professional assessment of a work is a matter for music composers and music critics, and this process has already started.
Not only in my opinion, the change of the state symbol also has its own democratic and procedural dimension, which must be respected. The approval of the anthem and other state symbols on March 1, 1990, as well as the approval of other state-forming acts in 1992 and 1993, during which I was a member of parliament, was always preceded by democratic assessment in the government and in parliamentary committees and in the plenary session of the National Assembly of the Slovak Republic. However, it was mainly the citizens who got away.
The anthem is connected with the entire history of the Slovak nation since 1918, when it created a joint state with the Czech nation, when the Slovak Republic was established on the basis of the Act on the Czechoslovak Republic. federation, when immediately after November, the second stanza was added to the Slovak anthem as an expression of the difference from the federal anthem. I want to emphasize that the need to change the musical form of the national anthem has never been an issue among citizens since the independence of Slovakia.
The anthem is for everyone
It became a topic based on the ambition of an individual who was supported by an incompetent and extremely unpopular Minister of Culture. His personal taste in music was imposed on the entire society without prior discussion. Such a procedure is rightly perceived as an arrogant assertion of individual preferences at the expense of the nation’s collective feelings. The latter was placed in front of a fait accompli. The national anthem is not a private artistic project after all. It is intended for all citizens who stand in the squares during national holiday celebrations or listen to its tones before sports matches.
In addition, reservations were also voiced from the professional public regarding the planned modification of the anthem. Especially as regards respecting musical tradition and historical continuity. Gabriela Husková, the author of the study on the musical adaptations of our anthem, pointed out that until now the anthem was used in the harmonization of Alexander Moyzes, who was the founder of Slovak music, and in the instrumentation of his pupil Ladislav Burlas, who contributed significantly to the development of Slovak music not only as a composer, but also as a musicologist. By approving the musical arrangement by Oskar Rózsa, this connection to the Slovak cultural heritage is lost, it is not about strengthening the national identity, but about weakening it. Even such comments were arrogantly rejected.
Crawl into holes
I consider all of this to be a serious questioning of the democratic traditions and procedures that should adorn modern Slovak statehood. Changes to state symbols in a normally functioning democracy simply must not be approached in this way. Subjectivism and voluntarism are characteristic of authoritarian regimes. It is an insult to our independence, the 32nd anniversary of which we commemorated.
Secondly, Oskar Rózsa, who photographed himself in the company of neo-Nazi Daniel Bombic showing the extremist symbol White Power, and flat earther, conspirator, racist fighter against the Khazars and destroyer of Slovak culture Lukáš Machala, sent us a serious message from London on 23/11/2024. With a face full of anger, hatred and arrogance, he declared in their presence that he is not making his version of the anthem for us, that it is not our anthem, that is, it is intended only for people who think like him and his companions.
He threatened us, who have different opinions than him, and not only about the form of the anthem, i.e. the majority of citizens, that our time is running out and we should crawl into holes. That was the most fascist statement of the past year. In the statement of the Slovak Anti-Fascist Movement, we stated that “it is absolutely unacceptable that the national anthem of the Slovak Republic is misused to spread hatred and divide society, moreover, by a person who received a state order.”
Let them listen to her
I will never recognize a musical product from such a person, who also threatened me as a citizen, as my anthem. I fundamentally disagree with the views of this extreme right-wing trio, and therefore let them keep Rózs’s version of the anthem to themselves as an expression of their group’s ideological and political identity. And apparently also the identity of the far-right part of the government coalition. And those who agree with the opinions of this trio should listen to the new version of the anthem. I have not climbed into the hole and I am not going to.
How false was Oskar Rósza’s apology for his aforementioned scandalous statements, is evidenced by his statement to critics of the way he got the contract to edit the wording of the anthem, and critics of the form of his editing. It was even worse than the one from London. He said that he was right about who the new adjustment is for, or it is not. And he added that someone who allegedly wanted to sabotage the premiere “probably needs to be visited with sheet metal scissors and take a better look at his nails.”
Notice, no one from the government coalition spoke out against this unprecedented threat by Rózs that he would like to torture some critics. His cry that he is someone’s victim is therefore hypocritical. It was enough if he had received the contract based on a public tender.
Let them listen to her
I fundamentally disagree with the views of this extreme right-wing trio, and therefore let them keep Rózs’s version of the anthem to themselves as an expression of their group’s ideological and political identity. And those who agree with their views should listen to her. I have not climbed into the hole and I am not going to.
In conclusion, it can be said that the Ministry of Culture made a caricature of its own statement that “it wants to bring the national anthem closer to young people, who would feel pride and a personal connection with this symbol when listening to it.” The goal is for the national anthem to be a source of national identity, unity and positive values for all Slovaks.”
The way the new version of the anthem was prepared and communicated, the way professional and lay public opinions were ignored, caused the exact opposite – the gap between different groups of citizens deepened. Quite simply, the circus surrounding the new musical form of the anthem further divided and polarized society.
We have a choice
To make matters worse, the Ministry of Culture decided that from On January 1, 2025, Oskar Rózsa’s adaptation of the anthem will be used, but the Ministry of the Interior, which by law has the agenda of state symbols and their adaptations, has not issued guidelines for the use of the anthem. This means that both versions of the music arrangement can be used, which again does not contribute to national unity, but to the division of society.
Given the above-mentioned circumstances, the users of the anthem will understandably choose the version of the anthem not only according to political, ideological and musical sympathy and antipathy towards its editor, but also according to the relationship to the undemocratic, voluntaristic and subjectivist procedure of preparation and implementation of this intervention in the form of one of the state symbols.
The musical arrangement of Moyzes-Burlas has indisputably more legitimacy than Rózs’s in terms of its assessment and approval procedure, because it also passed the committee of the NR SR. As G. Husková pointed out, according to the opinion of the Ministry of the Interior, no specific instrumentalization of the national anthem has ever been, is not, and cannot be codified and agreed upon as exclusive, because this would exclude the legal protection of other musical presentations of the national anthem. So it is not true that the anthem in Rózs’s musical arrangement can be used as the only one and that it is the official version of the national anthem. We will have a choice.
